KKB191

Am I Black Enough?

Assessment Task 2: Reflective Essay

Word Count: 1925

Reflective Essay | Am I Enough?

Upon entering this minor, I had an idea of what I expected and hoped to learn. I wanted to receive formal education on Indigenous knowledges to give integrity to my writing and ensure that I did what I needed to write about Indigenous themes or characters in my work without causing offense or misappropriation. I expected to learn about history and culture. I did not expect to realise how vague these expectations were by week two, and I did not expect to have an identity crisis by week three. The focus of this essay is meant to be in the heading: Am I ___ enough? But I felt that omitting by the third word made more sense to me. Because I don’t know what is meant to go there. Not even after this unit. I could not put just one word there but by taking away that blank, I made the title a question that I have been asking since week three: Am I Enough?

The week three Yarning Circle asked us to reflect upon our own cultural interfaces. When I started my contribution, I found it was easy enough to write but hard to look at. My father is a mix of Tongan, Samoan and Swiss, and my mother is Australian. My step-mother, who helped raise me for almost five years, is Indigenous Australian and my father’s younger brother raised me for about three years. Growing up, it was undeniable that I was Tongan, and I was fiercely proud of it; still am. When I learnt that my last name was an indication that I was Swiss, I was proud of that too, and I made sure to write the accent in my name and correct others on its pronunciation. I only found out that I am part Samoan a few years ago because I managed to access family records, and I am proud of that as well. Being raised with an Indigenous Australian family has given me a culture shock now that I am older. As a child, they were family, and so growing up and finding that there is a huge rift between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Peoples was strange. I had never presumed to believe that being a part of that family made me Indigenous, but I had never imagined that once my relationship with them became distant, I would be perceived as part of a different ‘circle’. By that I mean, I am now in a strange suspended cultural space where I have far too many people approaching me and assuming I share similar ignorant views that non-Indigenous people have about Indigenous people. Growing up in a Polynesian culture taught me to accept people from all walks of life and growing up alongside Indigenous culture taught me to respect the land and be mindful. But my family ties have waned, and I no longer attend the feasts, do the dances, wear the lei’s or leaf belts, eat the foods that some perceive as strange, and sing the Tongan songs after prayer. All these things that were a part of me were ways I interacted with my culture and studying this unit has made me realise that my interaction is now limited to research and bloodline. It has made me wonder if I am a part of them anymore. Because of my lifestyle, my skin is an odd pale. People say that when I am tanned, you can see it, but when I am not, I don’t ‘really look islander’. This causes two issues: for one, it sometimes feels hard defending my own blood; and two, it sometimes makes people think that I am ‘white’ and therefore I am open to racist discussion about ‘non-whites’. Though I am not ‘obviously islander’, I have not been faced with the same discrimination as my Indigenous family when it comes to defining my ethnicity. Two of my elder sisters have blood ties to the Darug Tribe, and yet their pale skin has copped them the question “how Aboriginal are you?” and have had them listening to the rants of racists who make the assumption that they are non-Indigenous. Studying the cultural interface has made me wonder about my cultural identity. I didn’t quite consider that my knowledge would put me at a theoretical distance to my culture (USQ, n.d.). Just because I have this mix of blood, does that make me any of those things? Just because I had that culture then, does that mean I have it now? Am I Tongan enough? Am I Samoan enough? Am I Swiss enough? Am I Australian enough? I have never thought about it.

As I scrutinise myself for my heritage, Indigenous Australians are scrutinised by the media for the same thing. What should be a personal matter of identity and pride is now being treated by media as a public issue (Overington, 2012). And not only are they scrutinised but they are judged, for their history and for their current suffering. The Herald Sun continues to employ writer Andrew Bolt who has written ‘How the “stolen generations” Myth Kills’ (Bolt, 2013). He even goes as far to say, “The “stolen generations” were best defined by Professor Robert Manne: Children of “mixed-descent” rescued “not from harm … but from their Aboriginality” by authorities who wished “to help keep White Australia pure””; completely disregarding the grief and truth of the past and present for Indigenous Australians. There is much presence of this kind of argument in modern media, with Indigenous knowledges and voices often taking the back seat. The Australian government focuses on policies of immigration and media, discussing the ‘disloyalty’ of immigrants (which are usually only referred to as ‘Muslims’ or ‘Asian’) to Australia and yet makes rare mention of the fact ‘Australia’ was built upon immigration (Murphy, 2016). And yet the treatment of the immigrants and Indigenous Australians is almost similar and yet opposite. Despite Pacific Islanders and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders sharing similar culture, the treatment of them have been entirely different; or should I say, is different. In reflection of my own upbringing, my step-mother was treated with more racial discrimination than my father, even though he is much darker. And so, it forces me to believe that, though my father is the immigrant of the pair, he is treated more kinder in this country because he is Pacific Islander and not Indigenous Australian. Media, literature, government policy, stereotype, general treatment and my own experiences tell me that my Pacific Islander father is culturally safer in Australia than my Indigenous Australian step-mother. And that is horrifying.

With the control of media being in the hands of the ‘whites’ for so long, Indigenous representation and stereotype have been skewed and cultivated to suit the nation of ‘White Australia’ and its white fragility. In Dhuuluu-Yala [To talk straight]: Publishing Indigenous Literature, Anita Heiss examines the way that non-Indigenous control over media and publication has provided a manufactured Indigenous voice that has been romanticised and formed to make Indigenous People ‘exotic’, capitalising on the image of ‘pro-Indigenous’ whilst forging Indigenous work and utilising Indigenous culture without permission or sensitivity (Heiss, 2003). But despite the importance of Heiss’ thorough analysis on how Indigenous culture and representation should be handled in literature, the lack of study and understanding of Indigenous Peoples and Culture has continued into modern media. Unfortunately, modern media is more accessible and consumable for the majority of the country, and thus prejudiced stereotypes have survived with exposure to Indigenous literature and argument being minimal. Instead of the education system taking on board Indigenous media such as Dark Emu (Pascoe, 2018) or “It’s Still in My Heart, This is My Country”: The Single Noongar Claim History (Host & Owens, 2009), there is a continued neglect of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation and history, allowing non-Indigenous construction of Indigenous Australian stereotypes and depiction to prevail in public opinion. Websites dedicated to connecting Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, through education of culture and history to facilitate understanding, have risen independently, such as Common Ground (Common Ground First Nations, n.d.) and Creative Spirits (Creative Spirits, 2007). Creative Spirits is also dedicated to deconstructing the representations and discrimination of Indigenous Australians in multimedia, exposing incorrect information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to show the continuation of institutional racism against Indigenous People (Korf, 2019). Articles like the ones that are deconstructed by Creative Spirits have led to the necessity of forming media outlets primarily managed and organised by Indigenous Australians, such as the Koori Mail (1991) and ABC Indigenous, who also have Facebook pages to enable further social representation (ABC Indigenous, 2012). This shows the continuation of Heiss’ call for Indigenous publication to be overseen by Indigenous People (Heiss, 2003).

It has been more than two-hundred years since the slaughter of the First Nations culture and people and yet we have only just had the first Indigenous politician appointed to be Minister of Indigenous Affairs (Higgins & Shine, 2019). That in itself is prime example of Australia’s representation of Indigenous Australians. And though the Koori Mail (Koori Mail, 1991) and ABC Indigenous (Higgins & Shine, 2019) have kept this late progress in the forefront of their media pages, massive media outlets such as The Australian have already pushed the story down, placing it underneath other stories that revolve around cricket, Ivan Milat and Home Loans (The Australian, 2019). The Australian article ‘Ken Wyatt’s cloak of responsibility’, however, does give representation of Indigenous Affairs by Indigenous People, including a quote from Ben Wyatt “saying the term special envoy suggested “Aboriginal people are some foreign, unknowable nation in need of a special diplomatic mission. Led by the country’s worst diplomat.”” (Laurie, 2019). The lack of education and protective cultural policy around the First Nations People, in their own country, is the mark of a nation built upon attempted genocide and colonisation. I might even go one further to say that even today, White Australia (a generalisation), under the guise of ignorance and disbelief, is trying to ‘smooth the pillow of a dying race’.

In reflection of what I have learnt in this unit, my initial goal for the Indigenous Knowledges Minor has changed. It was originally to ensure that I have understanding of how to appropriately address Indigenous Australian culture in my writing and to give me a formal education after realising my ineptitude on the history and current affairs of Indigenous Australians during my research of Noongar culture. Throughout this unit I have received profound provocation, which I believe has opened streams of thought that I would otherwise not have considered because of non-Indigenous domination of media. I have become more attentive to media and have begun actively seeking out Indigenous literature and learning, trying to engage with Indigenous knowledges outside of my novel research and subscription to pages such as Common Ground (Common Ground First Nations, n.d.). But I still wonder: am I enough? This exposure and learning have shaped my goal, broadening it into wanting to expose misinformation and lack of information with my writing. As an Australian writer, I cannot presume to write about Indigenous Australian affairs, but I can write about Australian’s representation of the Indigenous stereotype and discrimination. I want to utilise my standpoint and cultural interface, and my profession to facilitate information and understanding whilst appropriately ensuring that my voice never replaces the voice of a First Nations person as it has been done in the past (Heiss, 2003). I can only hope that in the future, as part of the larger picture: I am enough.

References

ABC Indigenous, 2012. ABC Indigenous. [Online]
Available at: https://www.facebook.com/ABCIndigenous/

Bolt, A., 2013. Column – How the “stolen generations” myth kills. Herald Sun, 16 May. 

Brendt, R. & Brendt, C., 1994. The Speaking Land Myth and Story on Aboriginal Australia : Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia. Rochester, VT, United States: Inner Traditions Bear and Company.

Common Ground First Nations, n.d. Common Ground. [Online]
Available at: https://www.commonground.org.au/?fbclid=IwAR36Faw56JeuKw4sru5RRNvR7uDnVoO9Tf5TPzlhtxGdbqdNIbmR2IXXLpw

Creative Spirits, 2007. Creative Spirits. [Online]
Available at: https://www.creativespirits.info/

Heiss, A., 2003. Dhuuluu-Yala [To talk straight]: Publishing Indigenous Literature. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.

Heiss, A., 2018. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. Carlton: Black Inc..

Higginbotham, W., 2017. Blackbirding: Australia’s history of luring, tricking and kidnapping Pacific Islanders. [Online]
Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754

Higgins, I. & Shine, R., 2019. Ken Wyatt faces a tough balancing act between party and people as Indigenous Affairs Minister. [Online]
Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-29/scott-morrison-ministry-ken-wyatt-indigneous-affairs/11157998?fbclid=IwAR3vs3bkMRjuPWLN8aJ2AHBhA95TPd9qvNtf2CVFf6cAC3m0zWrgPMiv-tw

Host, J. & Owens, C., 2009. “It’s Still in My Heart, This is My Country”: The Single Noongar Claim History. Crawley, W.A: UWA .

Koori Mail, 1991. Koori Mail. [Online]
Available at: http://koorimail.com/

Korf, J., 2019. Mainstream media coverage of Aboriginal issues. Creative Spirits, 21 February. 

Laurie, V., 2019. Cloak of Responsibility. The Australian, 31 May. 

Murphy, K., 2016. Pauline Hanson calls for immigration ban: ‘Go back to where you came from’. The Guardian, 14 September. 

Overington, C., 2012. Not so black and white. [Online]
Available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/no-so-black-and-white/story-e6frg8h6-1226305047298

Pascoe, B., 2018. Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture. London, UK: Scribe Publications.

The Australian, 2019. The Australian. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/

USQ, n.d. The Cultural Interface. [Online]
Available at: https://open.usq.edu.au/mod/book/view.php?id=7448&chapterid=640

Yarning Circle Contributions

[omitted]